Australian Railways Are NUTS!

Pardon my allergy-ridden voice, lol. SPR Drip- okieprint.com/SPR/shop/home

I am a 75 year old Australian, I worked in all areas depicted, I congratulate you on a very thorough & accurate depiction of Aus railway history. As a Tasmanian, appreciated your inclusion of their railway system which, due to geography, did not mimic the mainland.

As an Aussie (who is not really into trains} i found this very interesting and your narrating very soothing to listen to : )

As an Australian, I must say this video is very accurate! Not many commentaries from international viewers come close to achieving this level of accuracy and coverage. A few minor inaccuracies such as pronunciations, but we can't all be perfect, and I'd even say you did better than most non-Australians would.

The Pilbara is also home to the first totally battery electric mainline trains - with no external power. The battery is charged by dynamic braking on the run downhill to the port and the recovered charge used to drive the empty train back uphill to the mine.

Greetings! Typing this while sitting in a Victorian electric broad gauge suburban train set. Australia’s gauge problem came about… wait for it… because of an Irishman, an Englishman and a Scotsman. All the states hired their own engineers, who built their networks to their native gauges back home. Throw in timber tramways, private lines as well and we have at least 4 gauges in Victoria alone. Great video!

I wrote part of the computer control system which loads iron ore on to trains on a pilbara mine. It took control of the engine off the driver and moved the train in sync with the ore loader. The train was so long a special radio communication tower was built on a hill top to ensure the required line of sight with the front of the train.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) is actually a federal government owned statutory corporation with passenger services having priority over freight. Rail operators pay fees to ARTC for access to the network and ongoing operations and maintenance are built into the pricing structure. Additional funding is also provided by Government.

I’m Australian and didn’t know half of the stuff you went though in this video. Really great work, loved it!

As an Aussie who is a sectionmen in Australia, I really enjoyed this. Even a good shot of a freighter coming over the old bridge in wallerawang which is a part of the track I look after was pretty dam cool. Thanks mate👍

Mate, to summarise that amount of our rail history in 19:26 minutes is a cracking (very good) effort worthy of 2 thumbs up 👍👍. New subby here as wel

I'm a blacksmith from Ipswich Queensland, two of my Anvils are from the Ipswich rail yards that were used to maintain all the steam locomotives in the south east. The rail yard is still in use today and has quite a decent collection of engines, some fully restored and others in various stages of restoration. Well worth the trip. Also if you ever visit, make sure to go to Dorrigo NSW, it holds the largest private collection of steam locomotives in the world. Hundreds of them back to back, it's a sight to behold.

I know this video was mainly focussed on freight lines, but as a Sydneysider, I've got to shout out the Tangara trains on our local rail network! Not only are they two storeys for maximum passenger seatage (as opposed to standing), but also those seats can be swung to face either direction, so you're practically never riding backwards! Also, when riding with friends in an empty enough train car, you can actually swing the chairs to fit up to 6 people facing each other 😊

Thanks for including my Cairns Rail Cement Train clip in your video! I’m very happy you credited my clip without just taking it without credit, I really appreciate it. Now for my comments, I wish you mentioned some more of Queensland’s railways because it’s so incredibly unique even aside the huge narrow gauge railway network. First of all our 2ft (610mm) gauge sugarcane trains are kinda crazy to think about. Thousands of kilometres worth of 2ft gauge track, spread over many extremely complicated networks north to south of the state. They operate with little to no signals at all and operated by radio communication instead! The only signals used are for catch points where 3ft 6in gauge crosses 610mm gauge and mill yards to indicate when a line of full or empty cane bins is ready for import or export. They also are incredibly unique as their large 2ft gauge rail networks are the only major tramway gauge railways in the world to operate a profitable business with millions of dollars of investment each year. Sugarcane train operations can also be very peculiar and sometimes even seem safety lacking at times. Trains with a crew of 2 are allowed the co-driver to hop out of the train while still moving, switch points or add things like tail sticks to the back of trains and get back on, yet again why the train is still moving! (Mostly at low speeds of course though😉) Also with some lines of particular sugarcane railways becoming so old that they have to use tractors to haul their train wagons! The ones I speak of are Victoria Mill’s “horse lines” in Ingham. Last thing I would like to mention about Queenslands sugarcane trains, quite a few of the new rebuilds of older locomotives are being equipped with remote control technology, so the driver can control the locomotive outside of the cab with a controller, useful for shunting especially around blind corners or areas where the driver cannot see very well while shunting. Also I would just like to mention the Kuranda Scenic Railway, which should’ve definitely gotten a mention in this video! It is an engineering marvel to say the least. They built the steep and mountainous railway line in incredibly harsh tropical rainforest conditions all the way back in 1891, carving 15 tunnels by hand, blasting away rock with dynamite and even having to dangle men from ropes to the cliff side to clear the way for the line. Over 30 people died to build the rather small length of 33 kilometres of track from Cairns to Kuranda. The construction of the railway has an incredibly fascinating history. Final thing I would like to mention… Queensland, despite operating on 3ft 6in (1,067mm) gauge has their own Beyer-Garratt too! It’s the Queensland Class, with 30 built from 1950-1951, measuring at 27.43m (90 ft) long. Only 1 of 30 is currently preserved. How those locomotives got around our narrow gauge network is beyond me! Anyway, great video. I really enjoyed it! It is awesome to see some representation for Australian railways.

As a West Australian, I loved your appreciation for the Pilbara's railway network [pronounced pil-buh-ruh] but it would have been really nice if you mentioned WA's expansive railway, which are also in 1067mm NG track. Here in Perth, we have a wide array of trains and lines, we've developed much differently because of our isolation from the East.

I have had two connections with railways in Australia. My father was a clerk (and the last few years a manager) in the old SAR (South Australian Railways) until it was taken over by the Commonwealth Railways to create Australian National Railways. My earliest memory of him at work was when he was the configuration controller for The Overland (then a 7 days a week nightly service between Adelaide and Melbourne on the broad gauge network, jointly owned by SAR/ANR and Victorian Railways. It is now operated by the tourist train operator that runs the Indian Pacific, Ghan etc. My dad also work on establishing adding sitting cars to the Indian Pacific from Peterborough (one end of the broad gauge network from Adelaide) to Sydney, and eventually all the way from Sydney to Perth. He use to be the co-ordinator of the steam trains until they were handed over to specialist groups. South Australia also had three gauges. The SAR’s main line was broad gauge (as was the city network in Adelaide), standard gauge across the middle where the Indian Pacific (and formerly Trans Australia) ran and then on Eyre Peninsula an isolated narrow gauge network. I said I would never work in the railways sector, but I was an executive with the Federal and State Governments creating National Rail Corporation, to take over all their interstate freight operations and turn around the $350 million loss per year in the sector. I was the head of Internal Audit so I ended up seeing across the entire business. We did the largest order of locomotives in Australia, ordering 120 units which made up most of the fleet until it was sold (now Pacific National). You can see these units pulling the Indian Pacific and The Ghan on contract to the private tourist train operator. One of the problems with getting the engines was weight limitations. Apart from some of the coal network in NSW, the tracks have lower weight limitations than say the USA. There are a couple of oddities. The government control track maintenance and service allocation provider has some network in NSW which does allow the heavier tracks for the Hunter Valley Coal to the Port of Newcastle which is a very complex network. In the end at NRC we decided not to purchases heavier engines for these tracks as it meant isolating locomotives to a particular area. As the various tracks in the Pilbara Region are developed and owned by the mining companies, and as you mentioned is an isolated system from any of the rest of the national system meant they built their track for heavier engines and rolling stock so are able to pretty much purchase off the locomotive manufactures in the USA catalogue! The other interesting part of working at NRC was the Federal Government project we were funded to undertake which was transforming the Melbourne to Adelaide route from broad gauge to standard gauge (which a different track our of Melbourne via Geelong and then getting back to the old mainline track). This created some challenge for passenger services in Adelaide which until recently their city network was Broad gauge (if I recall there was talk of when they were electrifying the network they would also convert to standard gauge, but I don’t know if that happened) and also in Melbourne more with their regional intercity network. I travelled on the old Ghan train, which was a broad gauge sit up passenger cars from Adelaide to Port Pirie (which was in motor cars - called the Blue Bird fleet), change their for an other sit up train (locomotive pulled) from Port Pirie to Oodnadatta, and then change to a narrow gauge network sleeper train from their to Alice Springs. I did this trip before they opened the standard gauge track from north west of Port Augusta on the Trans Australia track directly to Alice Springs and using similar carriages you see today (before the many modifications the private operator made). Whilst I was a kid/youth when my father was working at SAR/ANR a lot of our holidays were travelling interstate on various trains (The Overland - to Melbourne, the day train to Sydney etc). One thing missed is in the Blue Mountains out from Sydney is the steepest railway in the world. It is not that long, now is a tourist train, but originally was for coal. https://scenicworld.com.au/experience/scenic-railway

The trans-Australian railway wasn't just approved, it was constitutionally required as one of Western Australia's demands in joining the Commonwealth of Australia alongside an accompanying telegraph cable. Also, I live along the line between Perth and Kalgoorlie so get to see some impressive trains go through fairly regularly.

There is one more motive power that i really want to point out. FMG in the early 2000s bought ex-UP SD90MAC-H2s, they're numbered in 900 series. They were rebuilt in NS's Juniata shops before going to FMG. I'm not sure if they're still using those or not. I believe they're still wearing their 6000hp 16-265H engines before being rebuilt with EMD's 710 engines at somepoint. My favorite was FMG 903, its an ex-UP 8539 which made a cameo in movie Unstoppable (2010)!

Visited Fremantle in 87 while in the US Navy and loved it. Friendliest people I met while on WESTPAC. We drank to the Queen! Love from Long Island NY USA. New Sub.

You need to come and take a look at the Zig Zag railway in the Blue Mountains about 100 miles west of Sydney. Thie line was the original NSW Railways line over the mountains which was bypassed in 1910 by a 10 tunnel deviation with an easier grade. due to inability of the single line with its switchbacks to handle increasded traffic. The line was abandoned and torn up after it closed and at one stage a roadway used the formation and the tunnels were used to grow mushrooms. The Zig Zag Railway Co-Op (non profit) obtained the Right Of Way and set about progressively relaying track - to 3' 6" gauge (originally it was standard gauge) because they were unbable to source any standard gauge locos or carriages, and running trains for many years. After a devasting bushfire wiped them out some years ago they have now returned to full operation between Clarence (the highest staion on the line) and bottom points where they meet the new main line. The Zig Zag uses ex QR steam lcos and an eclectic mix of carriages from Tasmania, Western Australia, and South Australia (from the old Broken Hill to Port Pirie narrow gage line of the SAR). There is also the 2' 6" gauge Puffing Billy Railway near Melbourne - another icon with its tiny tank engines. Queensland is also home to the oldest working steam loco in the southern hemisphere - A10 #6, built in 1865 by Neilsons in Glasgow and shipped out to Australia in pieces. The loco is presently stored, operational, at Ipswhich Workshops. There is also a very short 2" 6" gauge line at Walhalla in Eastern Victoria called The Goldfields Railway and another of similar name in central Victoria running on broad gauge. There are many heritage steam locos on the ast coast, mainly in NSW and Victoria, though there are 2 or three in Queensland inluding "The yank", an AC16 class obtained from the usa during WW2..